My point was that Brosnan was VERY well known as BEING "Remington Steele" JUST before he became James Bond - and he made the transition just fine.
Now, was that because he was a good FIT as Bond or just coincidence??
Either way - his level of "notoriety" when he became Bond is similar to that of Jackman, presently. That's all I'm saying.
Remington Steele was a detective series that ran for SIX YEARS on North American TV and I think it ran in the UK later on (??). Many of the American TV programs start showing in the UK and other places 1-2 years after the original runs here and becomes successful.
The premise was that the lead female character ' "Laura Holt" wanted to be a private detective but she couldn't convince sexist clients that she was good enough for the job, so she invented a boss named "Remington Steele" that no one ever saw. Then this tall, dark, gorgeous British guy shows up calling himself Remington Steele, much to her dismay, and convinced the clients that he was the boss. Steele was a huge movie fan and quoted many titles of movies, which he used to help him solve cases. The show had a lot of humor, romance, mystery, and drama mixed together.
I think it's the "Executives" making marketing decisions. Sometimes the "gorgeous" characters are chosen just because of that - but they are chosen as unknowns because they cost less - and the execs. know they'll take a role for cheap just to get noticed for the next potential role.
Like Denise Richards - she is VERY pretty - I actually appreciated the fact that she seemed very athletic looking instead of just the usual standard - but on the scale of "FAME" in North America, she is still on lower side of "mid-range. She's mostly known as being Charlie Sheen's wife - which is how most people recognized her in the movie "Love, Actually".